Shall We Dance?
by Igenlode Wordsmith
Summary: At the masquerade ball, Christine loses a partner... and the two of them find each other. Musical-based fluff-fic.


_(In memory of Steve Barton, and all dance-trained Raouls)_

* * *

All around her masks nodded and wagged grotesquely, and garish costumes mocked at convention: women in clinging breeches, men in exotic robes and peacock-bright motley, capering like animals or feigning the jerky movement of automata, or simply crowding too close as the eddies of the dance caught her up and swirled her away. The Opera Populaire was dizzy with colour and music tonight, but it seemed to Christine in her growing panic that even Monsieur Reyer, conducting the orchestra with his customary meticulous precision, had begun to accelerate his beat until the masquerade took on an almost sinister frenzy from which she could not escape.

"Raoul!" They had been swept apart, and she had lost him. Masked faces leered and laughed; a dark girl whom Christine recognised from the chorus darted past in a dress that showed far too much bosom, pursued by a drunken cavalier whose teeth flashed white beneath the mask that hid his eyes. But Raoul was nowhere to be found.

A tall man with an angular gait trailed his cloak across her path in mocking invitation, and she shrank back without thinking, remembering a dark shape that moved in the mirror, that crawled long-limbed across the floor like a deformed, cringing spider... It was not _him_. Of course it was not. She caught the glint of a gold tooth and the reek of cheap hair-oil as the stranger sent the ragged costume cloak whirling through the air, too close. In her ears, the music of the dance beat faster and faster, and every time she tried to duck past and get free he was there in front of her, laughing...

"Raoul!" She choked back unreasoning panic, searching frantically through the sea of masked faces for a glimpse of bright braid or the swinging pelisse of the uniform he'd borrowed for tonight. Aristocrats weren't supposed to make fools of themselves in fancy-dress at the opera; if he'd turned up at all, it should have been in an impeccable evening suit with an expression of well-bred disdain. But Raoul had thrown himself into the spirit of the occasion and arrived at her door rigged out in the full glory of a Hussar's gold-frogged jacket and fur-trimmed cape.

He'd brought an old loo-mask all too obviously borrowed from an aunt, but Christine had firmly confiscated that in the carriage; her own hand-held mask had gone missing during that stupid, stupid quarrel they'd had earlier. Alone in the crowd, her face left bare to every curious glance, she began for the first time to feel naked without it.

"Oh, Raoul, please..."

And then suddenly he was there, warm hands closing around hers, eyes softening into deep-held relief, and Christine wrapped herself in the familiar scent and refuge of his embrace. She'd borrowed a scarf of his once when she was cold, not a red scarf (Raoul's teasing aside, she'd long since lost track of that childhood relic) but a long strip of fringed white silk that still held a trace of him when she took it out again from her drawer and pressed it to her cheek, alone in her room... Christine buried her face in his neck, breathing him in, and felt her tremors ease. She hadn't even realised she was shaking.

His arms tightened around her. "I thought I'd lost you."

"I thought I'd lost _you_. I thought—" But those wild impressions of panic were ebbing away now like nightmares in the light of dawn, and she let out a long-held breath, leaning back to smile up at him as he released her. "I don't remember what I thought. I'm all right, Raoul. It's all right."

Behind them the grand staircase was full of people, pausing to watch the spectacle below or ascending towards the long buffet tables laid out in the galleries above, where chilled punch and ices were offered for their refreshment. Raoul was looking rather anxiously into her face. "Wait here — I'll go and get you a drink."

Her heart clenched in sudden senseless panic at the thought of losing sight of him again, and she clutched at his arm before he could turn away. "No, please — please." She managed a smile. "Please stay here. With me."

"Always," Raoul said softly, smiling back down into her eyes, and Christine felt her heart turn over again in that entirely different breathless way, one to which after all these months she was still not quite accustomed.

He stepped back a little, offering his hand. "In which case"—the smile of reassurance had widened into a hint of a grin—"honoured mademoiselle, shall we dance?"

"Dance?" Christine echoed, confused, then flushed, hearing how foolish that sounded. But people were still dancing all around them; the music had never stopped since they'd arrived.

"Dance," Raoul said firmly. "You can't invite me to a masquerade ball and then start refusing to dance with me, surely — not after all the trouble I took?"

He gestured to his gaudy costume with a wounded look, then leaned closer, with a tender note in his voice that warmed her beneath the laughter. "And if you want to keep me by your side, Christine, I can't think of a better way to make sure of it... or a more pleasant one. Can you?"

He held out his hand again, and after a moment's hesitation she let herself be tugged back into the shifting patterns of the dance, her skirts flaring about her as she swung, and stepped, and was turned. Only this time Raoul was with her once more, shielding her against the bumps and intrusions of the bodies all around, finding and matching the rhythm of her steps without ever missing a move, until she knew by instinct just where he would be and the soaring excitement of the music took them both.

How had she ever seen this bright throng as sinister? The air was ringing with laughter, all cares and proprieties laid aside for one night of pretended disguise, and she was flying through it all, with Raoul there to hold her, to catch her and meet her in perfect unison, the two of them moving together as if they had been practising for this all their lives.

"I can't believe how well you dance!" Giddy with excitement, she laughed up into his face as the movement swirled them together; leaned back in his arms, laughing again, a little breathlessly, at the affronted look she got in response.

"Of course I dance. Why else would I be here?"

Christine came back gracefully onto her feet just as a stout gentleman in a frog-mask and green silk costume guided his partner across their path, moving unexpectedly lightly. She let Raoul swing her to the right, the strong curve of his body echoing the arch of hers.

"I mean, you can _really_ dance. Like we do on stage, almost. And after the way you used to tread on my toes all the time in the rock-pools..."

"You always used to say that just because my feet were bigger than yours," Raoul retorted indignantly. "I don't suppose it ever occurred to you that the son of a Vicomte might be obliged as part of his upbringing to practise just as hard as you did? I had to master my accomplishments, you know. Dancing, duelling, riding, gallantry — you wouldn't believe the hours of my adolescence that were wasted at the beck and call of some puffed-up Italian dancing-master with pompadoured hair and a staff to rap my toes..."

"Well, clearly not wasted." Christine sank back, feather-light, into his hold, and whirled free. For the space of a few bars they were in mirror-step, he advancing, she retreating; she shot him a glance of mock-reproof. "Besides, what else would you have been doing with your time? Out chasing girls with the other sprigs of the nobility? Papa had taken me away, and I wasn't there to keep an eye on you..."

A quick quarter-turn, and she was poised with raised arms, flung out in an echo of the beat. Raoul had followed suit almost in the same moment, but there was nothing of flirtation in his quiet words. "I could have been looking for you."

"Oh, Raoul..." The dance brought them face to face again, and she slipped her hand into his for a squeeze of brief comfort.

"Papa meant it for the best, you know he did. You were a Vicomte and the son of a Vicomte, and your mother wanted better things for you than the daughter of a Swedish violinist who made his living in concert halls... and he didn't want to see me hurt." Raoul's clasp came round her waist as they turned, and she let her head rest against his shoulder for a moment. "And in the end you found me anyway."

"I couldn't believe it was you." There was a trace of that same wonder in his eyes when she looked up, and when he returned her smile it was a little crooked. "After everything my mother said... she even told me she thought the two of you might have gone back to Sweden, can you imagine that? And then years later I got involved with the Opera House, of all places — and of all the girls in all the world, there you were. How could I even hope you still remembered me?"

The music swung them apart, and Christine laughed back at him, fingertips caught in his. "Only I did. And now..."

But it hadn't been quite that easy, and she carried the memory of it as a shadow that she could never entirely forget; Raoul's ring nestling beneath her bodice instead of gleaming proudly from her hand was reminder enough of that. She bit her lip. There might be unseen eyes watching them even now, from behind any of these masks around her. Six months of silence, and she was still afraid of what the Phantom might do if he learned she meant to marry Raoul...

She put the thought firmly to the back of her mind, as she had done so often before. "I wish Papa could see us now. He'd be so surprised — and so pleased."

"You really think he would?" Raoul sounded a little wistful.

"Oh, he would. He was so very fond of you, only..." Christine faltered at the memory of her father trying, very kindly, to explain the ways of the world to the growing daughter he'd caught being kissed by a boy expected to marry elsewhere. How could she tell Raoul that her father had feared they'd go too far without a thought for the consequences? In some ways, he'd been so very old-fashioned where the morals of the nobility were concerned... "It was just the whole Vicomte thing, that was all."

"It never made any difference to me. I wouldn't have let it make any difference," Raoul said stoutly. "Even Vicomtes have feelings, you know."

He shot her a rather mischievous look. "Why, where else do you think little Vicomtes come from?"

"Raoul, really—" Christine went scarlet at the implication.

His hand slid down round her waist from behind, drawing her close. "And I know exactly where mine are going to be coming from..."

His laughter brushed her like a trail of feather-light kisses, and Christine pulled herself free almost violently.

"How _dare_ you?" She could have slapped his face. If that was meant to be a joke, then it was one that sent hot and cold waves of shame across her the more she thought about it. "Maybe that's the way your friends talk behind the cavalry barracks"—a glare at his borrowed uniform—"but it's not the kind of remark any decent man makes in his wife's or sweetheart's hearing!"

Raoul had gone bright red in turn.

"I wasn't talking about— I didn't mean it like _that_ —" For a moment, shamefaced, he looked very young; no older, despite the veneer of adulthood, than the sixteen-year-old she'd caught in front of the mirror, practising with his new razor.

"I want my children to be with you, Christine, yours and mine; I think about what we'll call them, what they'll look like..."

And hadn't she done the same, after all? Hadn't she lain alone in bed at night between the clean white sheets and — almost without admitting it to herself — begun to put a face to those vaguely-conceived children of every little girl's dreams? And, Christine told herself, feeling her face grow hotter than ever, hadn't she let her mind stray across the firm breadth of his shoulders beneath his coat, the long line of hip and thigh, and at least _wondered_ about the making of those children, and what it could possibly be like?

She looked back at Raoul, and found him unable to meet her eyes. And in that sudden new awareness between them she understood that — whatever he might say — he'd been wondering, too. The same nights, perhaps, in the same sleepless hour... She caught her breath.

"I do, too." The words were almost inaudible. She swallowed, and slipped her hand back into his, feeling it tremble. "Think... about it."

Raoul said nothing. But his arms came about her again with a halting restraint, and after a moment she could feel the weight of his cheek resting against her hair, and the quick strong beat of his heart.

The chink of glassware and high, drunken laughter came drifting from upstairs, and all around them dancers stooped and swirled in giddy flight and the music mounted in blurred echo upon blurred echo towards the ceiling high above. This was her world: this wild licentious half-society of masks and painted faces, where tears of tragedy and laughter were mingled on the same stage, and murder and madness lay hidden in the shadows below... The Phantom was still out there, she was sure of it. Sometimes she thought she could sense him like a cold breath at the back of her neck. And she had brought Raoul here, into the unspoken taint of danger trailing at her heels and the burning, jealous regard of the angel in hell.

She should leave him. She should cut herself free and seek refuge somewhere in obscurity, where the world would never find her. She had no right to take Raoul's ring and his promise when he did not, could not understand what it meant for them both. But the very thought of Raoul removed from her life — of all that dreamed future turned to ashes — brought a stab of such desolation that she knew she would never be able to do it.

She tugged him out onto the dance floor instead, into the lull at the centre of the crowd where every eye could see them. Let the Phantom watch, then, if he wanted. Let them all watch and think her wanton, an ambitious chorus girl who flaunted herself in the arms of their patron the Vicomte to gain leading roles. If she could not stand before them tonight as his chosen bride, then she would show at least that she was his.

The music sang between the two of them like the thread of a wild heartbeat, and Raoul beside her moved with a strong swift grace that filled her with a rush of pride. She was his and he was hers, and no-one could take this moment from them...

They swung apart briefly and came back together as the music slowed, Raoul a little breathless and his eyes bright with pleasure. "Shall we?"

As the notes soared, she could read his mind.

"If you dare drop me, with all these people looking..."

"I didn't drop you last time, did I?" He held out his hands, and she leant back into his grasp, feeling his fingers spread and settle around her waist. "Christine, I'll never let you fall. How could I, when you carry my heart with you on a chain?"

His breath brushed warm golden links around her throat as she moved, and for an instant she was overwhelmingly conscious of him, so close. Then she sprang upwards as the chords built again, and felt him catch and lift her, until she was held aloft with his broad young strength beneath. His hands were firm at her waist, seeking no liberties but steady in a partnership of absolute trust, and the music rang out around them in an arc of triumph.

However high she might soar, Christine understood at last, he would always be there to uphold her. Perhaps he could not rise as she did on wings of song, but when she fell to earth his arms would be waiting to welcome her home.

Raoul set her down lightly, eyes laughing back into hers as she looked up to meet him, and drew her towards the stairs. In front of the orchestral players in the corner Reyer glanced round, as if to gauge the mood, and raised a hand.

Trumpets pealed, high and almost discordant, compelling the wild dance to an insistent stately beat, and Christine, following Raoul, found the two of them swept up with the rest. Arms reached out, feet were set in unison, and in the space of a few final minutes the whole gaudy gathering moved as one.

To the left and to the right of her, masked faces swayed and dipped; a familiar high giggle was another girl she knew from the chorus, and an overdressed lady in blue and yellow satin lost her balance and let out a squawk to rival the parrot she so resembled. Christine caught Raoul's eye again, found him struggling to keep a straight face, and bit her lip against a ridiculous upswelling of happiness.

What did it matter what the Phantom thought — what any of them thought? Raoul had asked her to marry him and with all her heart she had consented. And if their secret should somehow slip out... why, then, the world could just see what the Phantom had to say about that.


End file.
